20.10.2008.

Historical Period of English

early OE; V-VII century (oral OE) Old English (OE) classical OE; VIII- XI century (written & spoken OE)
=Anglo-Saxon language literature, but it refers to the language, tells us about the origin

- use of the speakers is what changes the language; contributes to its development - written language = alive and kicking - early OE developed into classical OE into its written form

Classical Old English

period: the old English language old English without article old English west Germanic origin 10 language families: they differ in vocabulary, language structure and sub structure similarity in each structure we can decide whether they belong to the same family INDO-EUROPEAN FAMILY - both English and Serbian belong to this family - difference in vocabulary and structure can be found within this group English and Serbian = INFLECTIONAL LANGUAGES - they dont belong to the same type

Serbian SYNTHETIC TYPE English ANALYTIC TYPE

*synthetic type = specific endings, gender endings MODERN ENGLISH ending fewer; their function is diminished; word order is important Languages which influenced English: GERMANIC, ITALIC branch (LATIN and its descendants), INDO-UKRAINIAN (SANSKRIT), CELTIC languages (very important influence), GREEK branch
consists of only one language *Classical Greek influenced all languages of our civilization

branch

INFLUENCE OF LATIN: - specific nature - during early OE - Germanic tribes were influenced by Latin - dominant in everyday language (domestic, military terms) 5th century year 449

-tribes settled on the British isles - speech which had tribal differences, had many more differences; - but it remained the same language within three Germanic tribes - first three, later four DIALECTS *differences in dialects subtle, mainly in phonology - structure is the same for all languages - typical Germanic language

GERMANIC BRANCH

EASTERN GERMANIC GROUP Gothic

NORTHERN GERMANIC GROUP Old Norse (staro skandinavski) further development of Scandinavian group

WEST GERMANIC GROUP

LOW WEST GERMANIC GROUP

HIGH WEST GERMANIC GROUP

various dialects of modern German

German

OLD OLD OLD OLD SAXON LOW FRANCONIAN FRIGIAN (frizijski) ENGLISH

*OLD ENGLISH spoken by the German tribes, all three tribes Linguists believed that this language had slight differences between tribes since they moved to different directions. Difference became great but it still remained the same language.

THREE MAIN DIALECTS:

1. ANGLICAN (spoken by Anglican) 2. WEST SAXON (they gave the name to the country and languge) 3. KENTISH - one part of them moved to the north of the river Hamber: NORTHAMBRIAN DIALECT 1.- part of the tribe remains between the rivers Hamber and Thames: MERCIAN DIALECT 2.- SAXONS : western part of island UNIFIED DIALECT 3.- KENTISH DIALECT: SE part of island KENTISH DIALECT *what remained written by SAXONS!

- very few Mercian - very few Northambian WEST SAXON - economically & politically most powerful kingdom king Alfred; 818 A.D. education of people - he paid attention to written texts, which brought political dominance - most studied dialect - rich vocabulary (20.000 words) - king Alfred translated himself from Latin to OE - quite developed language (structurally) *Differences between four dialects were mainly in their vocalic system e.g. WS /eo/ /o/ - change of the root vowel (sg. nom.// pl. nom./a/) e.g. dg /di/ dagas

ITALIC branch consisted of Classical Latin and Vulgar Latin

Classical Latin influenced OE (structure influenced OE; particularly syntactic influence) Roman influence was still felt, even though Roman Empire declined in 410 A.D. Celtic languages were spoken before Roman; still spoken when Germanic tribes arrived

CELTIC branch:
CONTINENTAL GROUP (Golish = Galski) Polish, Belgium ISLAND GROUP speech of Celtic tribes who lived on British isles *sub classified into 2 groups: 1. GOIDELIC Irish Gealic on the verge of extinction Scots Gealic Scotland Manx Gealic believed to be vanished 2. CYMRIC Cornish disappeared in 7th century Welsh spoken by Welsh in Wales WELSH REVIVAL Breton group of Celts on the British isles *David Cristal: Language death* - influence of these languages is not so marked - very few loan words excepted in English and are still in use OE asse, m.nom. MnE ass (phonological change) ENGLISH purely Germanic origin low west Germanic language; Indo European family SERBIAN Indo European family; South-Slavic group; Old Church Slavonic (Staroslovenski)